Much to the
delight/horror of us all, Colbert coined the new term "Wikiality," or the
phenomenon of how made-up facts can become "reality" by virtue of enough people
believing in them.
Even though I love
Wikipedia, much has been made of late about the fact that its open
system is susceptible to bad information being posted by malicious or
misinformed citizen-editors.
The blogosphere is nuts today
about this, with some people saying that he violated the honor system of the
beloved Web site. Others say that showing the system's weakness will make it
stronger in the end.
What do you
think?
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4 comments:
The internet is a beautiful thing, but it's made us lazy. Wikipedia is fun but not reliable, not in the same way as verified information from a more reputable source. It's sort of funny to think that Stephen Colbert could indicate that there are three times as many elephants as there used to be, but just imagine that kind of malicious untruths that could be posted on Wikipedia if James Dobson ever sent his minions on a quest to publish "information" about gay people. Yeesh.
The Wikipedia is not and should never be considered even distantly related to a real encyclopedia. I was horrified when people started treating it as real, and I'm delighted that he knocked it down a peg.
Regards,
Reynolds Jones
I've seen netizens tout wiki as an unassailable source, an eminently assailable position. I do, though, occasionally use wiki as a stepping-off point for arcana, e.g. Niger-Congo language family.
Stephen Colbert is funny, insightful and smart. Truly if someone uses Wikipedia for all their informational facts.... well... "Stupid is as Stupid Does"
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